In fact it’s my favorite Christmas poem, and the music is secondary to me in this case. So I’ve put it here in two versions. My wife likes the traditional tune sung beautifully here by Christian Jazz singer, Bryan Duncan. (Although this version is lifted from a medley and thus leaves out two verses)

And here’s a very popular updated version by Contemporary Christian artists, Casting Crowns.

The Poem was written during a very bleak time in our country and the author (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)’s personal life. Christmas had always been a special time for him but after watching his country split by civil war, losing his wife to a fire and almost losing his son to the war, he still managed ultimately to come to the conclusions in this poem. Two verses pertaining to the civil war are left out of the middle of the song.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!